and the first snow (does anybody, brought up in snow country, ever outgrow the thrill of the first fluttering flakes?) the marvel of the fairy frost world into which the whole country turns. Do you suppose I ever talked about Massachusetts? Not once. And so I have one criticism to bring against the Californiac. He is a person to whom you cannot talk about home. He grows restive the instant you get off the subject of California. Praise of any other place to his mind implies a criticism of California. On the other hand, that frenzied patriotism has its wonderful and its beautiful side. It is a result partly of the startling beauty and fecundity of California and partly of a geographical remoteness and sequestration which turned the Californians in on themselves for everything. To it is due much of the extraordinary development of California. For to the average Californian, the best is not only none too good for California, but she can have nothing else. Californians even those not suffering from an offensive case of Californoia--speak of their State in reverential terms. To hear Maud Younger--known everywhere as the "millionaire waitress" and the most devoted labor-fan in the country--pronounce the word California, should be a lesson to any actor in emotional sound values. The thing that struck me most on my first visit to California was that boosting instinct. In store windows everywhere, I saw signs begging the passer-by to root for this development project or that. Several years ago, passing down Market street, I ran into a huge crowd gathered at the Lotta Fountain. I stopped to investigate. Moving steadily from a top to a lower window of one of the newspaper offices, as though unwound from a reel, ran a long strip of paper covered with a list of figures. To this list, new figures were constantly added. They were the sums of money being subscribed at that very moment for the Exposition. Applause and cheers greeted each additional sum. That was the financial germ from which grew the wonderful Arabian Nights city by the bay. It was typically Californian--that scene--and typically Californian the spirit back of it. And four years later, when the outbreak of the war brought temporary panic, there was no diminution in that spirit. Whether it was a "Buying-Day," a "Beach Day," an "Automobile Parade," a "Prosperity Dinner," San Francisco was always ready to insist that everything was going well. It was the same spirit which inspired a whole city, the day the Exposition opened, to rise early to walk to the grounds, and to stand, an avalanche of humanity, waiting for the gates to part. It was the same spirit which inspired the whole city, the night the Exposition ended, to stay for the closing ceremonies until midnight, and then, without even picking a flower from the abundance they were abandoning, silently and sorrowfully to walk home. Let's look into the claims of these Californiacs.